Using oil and ink, linen and paper, and a fierce fidelity to the line, my work is an attempt to capture the languages, patterns, and echos of the forest—of being lost, of being found. A quietness, a melancholy, a joyfulness, a hopefulness, a loudness, a seemingly futile journey towards grace.

I am deeply inspired by the environment, especially long walks through the Northern California woods. I am captivated by the wind rustling through the branches; there are stories in that sound. And too in the bark puzzled and intertwined, in the pine needles seemingly random on the ground, in the intricate laced patterns of beetle trails on fallen trees.

It’s the journaling of time, of human and of not-human, the marks we made, the scars we left: in the rings, in the petals, in the voices, the memory remains. Footprints, flashbacks, fumes, wisps, elusive, harsh, striking, certain, concrete. We were here before we were lost.

Filice communicates her “one true moment” through the expression of line and repetition, using her exquisite sensitivity to materials and the touch of her hand to share her transformative experience with the viewer.
— Michael David